


Diving In

by Takada_Saiko



Series: At the End of All the Lies [7]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Adventure, F/M, Fluff, Keen2, follow up to World on Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 21:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4720730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz gets a visit from Matt, the boy that helped her escape the Major's school, and with him comes a lead to a new case. (#7 in the one-shot followups to World on Fire).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diving In

**Diving In**

"I'm glad you're finding my near death experience amusing," Jacob grumbled from the passenger seat where he was still soaked through. Part of him was at least a little satisfied that he was going to leave a water stain on the FBI's nice leather seats. He would take his wins where he could today.

"It wouldn't have been a near death experience if you would just learn to swim," Liz countered. "And Samar made a valid point. There was no reason to gripe at her for it."

Jacob leveled one of his best glares at his ex. The problem was that she knew better than to believe it. Liz just rolled her eyes and pulled along the street in front of her apartment. It was closer than his own and he could wash the lingering saltwater off and grab a quick change of clothes before going back in to write his report... Which would only end in Ressler joining in the mockery as well. He was about ready for it to be done and over with.

"I can teach you, you know," Liz offered as they climbed out of the vehicle. "How is it that you went through so much specialized training and never learned?"

"Avoiding things I don't want to do is one of my many talents."

Liz shook her head, laughing softly at him. "Like the laundry?"

Jacob snorted. "That was one time I left them in there."

"Yeah, and I liked that sweater. You left it in the closed washer for three days!"

"The kids were in the middle of testing," he argued. "It slipped my mind."

"Uh huh. Master spy, unless it comes to swimming or laundry," his ex wife teased as she reached for her keys, fitting one into the lock and turning it. She froze for a moment and Jacob shot her a questioning look. "I didn't leave it unlocked this morning."

Jacob immediately tensed, gun in his hand as Liz pushed open her front door. There was no sound from Hudson who should have been there to greet them even if they were at the door earlier than Liz usually came home.

The sound of paws on the carpet filled the front room as Hudson came scurrying around, happy and drooling. Liz lowered her gun to catch hold of him and Jacob slipped past, his still in hand, and went to clear the rest of the small apartment. He rounded the corner to the little alcove tucked away where Liz kept her desk and he instantly lowered his weapon. "Liz, I think I found your burglar," he called with a smile.

The young boy that sat in her computer chair bristled at the accusation. "I'm not stealing anything!"

Liz came around the corner, eyes wide. "Matt? What are you doing here? How did you get in?"

The boy, one of Bud's recruits that had helped Liz escape a few months before, had latched onto her and Liz had visited him at the foster home he had been put into in DC several times. He was adjusting, slowly, but he had never shown up at her apartment before, as far as Jacob was aware, but there he sat like he was in his own home. He tilted his head at Jacob. "Why are you all wet?"

"Oh no you don't," Liz stated firmly. "Matt, how did you get in my apartment?"

The boy looked over at Jacob like he was hoping for help and he shrugged. "Better to learn now not to lie to her. She doesn't like that."

Matt frowned and stood, reaching deeply into the pocket of his cargo pants and pulling a relatively nice set of lockpicks from it. Jacob held his hand out to inspect them. "You work quick," he said, turning them over. "Where'd you get these?"

"Traded for them."

"Why would you need a set of lock picks?" Liz asked softly and Matt looked up at her like she's asked the dumbest question available to her.

"To get in places."

Jacob chuckled. The kid might have been a little soft for Bud's program, but he certainly could see why the Major had picked him up. He had gone with Liz a couple of times to take Matt for ice cream, but hadn't gone the times that she had simply dropped by the foster home to see him. Liz never pushed him to, and while he was fond of the kid, he had seen enough foster homes to last him a lifetime. He had no interest in seeing another unless he could do something to fix the situation.

Even in the limited time that he'd had with him, Jacob had seen just how clever Matt was. He would wager that he made few natural connections with people, but on the rare occasion that he did, that was a connection that _couldn't_ be broken. Not lightly, at any rate, if Jacob's own similar disposition was anything to go off of. He had connected with Liz though and she was the one he would turn to if he was in some sort of trouble.

"What's happened?" Jacob asked softly, gaining Matt's attention.

The kid set his jaw and Liz leaned against the wall. "You can trust us, Matt. You know you can, or you wouldn't have come."

"It's stupid," he mumbled and Jacob could feel his ex wife's eyes on him, like she expected him to be able to read between those incredibly vague lines.

"Are you in trouble?" she asked quietly.

Matt looked up. "Not yet."

"We need the whole story, kiddo, or we can't protect you," Jacob told him.

"But you'll protect me?"

"I promised you I would," Liz confirmed and reached out to him, taking his smaller hand. "And Jacob and I are a team."

The kid was more nervous than he wanted to admit, but after a moment of looking back and forth between them he loosed a long breath, drawing his knees up to his chest and curling into the computer chair. Hudson moved so that he was sitting next to him and Matt reached down to scratch him between the scruffy ears. "Lots of the kids at the school didn't have anything on their record that would stick, so they were put back in. One guy that I knew... I ran across him on my way home from school. He was up to something so I followed him."

Jacob winced. From everything he had heard from Liz about Matt and from the boy himself, anyone that knew him at Bud's school was well aware he wouldn't have made it to graduation. Washouts weren't popular. There were a few that had tagged him as one when he had first begun, but he'd _made_ them think twice. He wasn't sure Matt had that in him.

"He got ahold of this guy maybe a couple of years older. I didn't know him, but Kossler killed him. I think he saw me."

Liz winced. "Okay, we're going to take care of this. I'm going to make a couple of calls while Jacob hops through the shower so that he doesn't smell like the bay."

Matt cracked a small smile at that and Jacob rolled his eyes. "Thanks, babe."

"Hey, we promised not to lie to each other," she teased. "And don't complain, I'm about to get you out of an afternoon of paperwork."

* * *

 

The task force had jurisdiction over any case that connected back to Bud's school, and all it took was a call to Ressler to get Liz and Jacob on the case. There had been a warning there, one that was only accepted because Ressler really knew her far too well, to be careful and, if she thought she would be emotionally compromised on this particular case, that he would take it on personally. Liz had assured him that they would be fine with it, but she would keep him in the loop.

Samar met them at the crime scene while Aram went to go sit with Matt, offering to entertain him for a while and keep him out of trouble. While they let the foster home know that he was safe, it was out of the question to send him back to a place where the supposed murderer could find him.

The former Mossad agent offered a smile towards Jacob and Liz nudged him hard in the ribs as he glared. "I'm still waiting for that story, Phelps."

Liz's ex husband cracked a smile. "Not happening, Navabi."

Samar chuckled and looked over. "What kind of operative doesn't know how to swim?"

"That kind," Liz answered, nodding towards Jacob as she moved past, flashing her badge for the local PD. "Special Agents Keen, Navabi, and Phelps." She could almost feel Jacob bristle behind her at the title. "I believe Assistant Director Ressler should have called?"

"Yeah, sounds like you guys are taking this one over."

"It's potentially linked to an open case."

"Let me guess: classified?"

"It is. We'll keep you as in the loop as possible."

Liz glanced back and Samar was already moving to kneel down and take a look at the body covered in the ground. Jacob came to stand with her. "Mike Kossler," he said lowly. "I've been away from the school way too long to know anything about him personally."

"But you know how they're trained."

His eyes met hers and he nodded, following in step with her to where Samar was crouched down. She was all business now, the joke that had been running since she had found out that Jacob couldn't swim put away for a much more serious subject. "They're saying that a jogger found the body, no ID yet."

Jacob shifted at her side. "This wasn't a scuffle. It was an execution."

Liz looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"The killer isn't a student. He's probably young enough that Matt mistook him for one, but the kids usually range anywhere between Matt's age and eighteen. He's part of a clean up crew. Bud - or whoever he left behind - is cleaning house."

"This man isn't young enough to have been another student," Samar pointed out.

"No, but he could have been a teacher that was off campus during the raid or any number of connections that worked with the graduates. Look deep in his record, not just on the surface."

"Wouldn't you know him if he was a teacher?"

Jacob shrugged. "Not if he were new within the past five years or so. Deep cover means no contact."

Deep cover. Their marriage. Liz pushed it aside. "So you're saying that if we don't catch this guy, this isn't the last execution."

"Not the first, either."

Liz turned, a little startled by the hostile tone. She found a face that she would have preferred never seeing again. Detective Wilcox had made her life during the investigation a nightmare and it was something that she did not want to focus on. They were moving forward, not holding to the sins of the past. That had been what she and Jacob had decided, and it was the only way they _could_ move forward.

"I've been told you've swept in and taken over the investigation. Does that mean one of your people killed him?"

"This murder is part of an ongoing investigation, Detective," Liz said tightly. "We will need any information you have on previous victims."

"I'm sure you will." His gaze shifted over to Jacob. "You people really are something. Nothing's ever true with you people, is it?"

Jacob squared his shoulders, but Liz was fairly certain that he didn't actually recognize the detective. He had barely seen him during the trial.

"We're on a case, Detective Wilcox," Samar cut in. "If you have a problem, you'll need to go higher up than any of us here."

The detective grumbled something under his breath and Liz straightened her back, refusing to back down. He seemed to realize it was a losing battle and snorted. "I'll have the information sent over to your offices," he said gruffly and turned, walking away without another word.

Liz shook her head. "We can't rely on his people to give us anything."

"Who is he?"

She looked over to her ex husband. "The detective that was in the harbor master case."

To his credit, Jacob winced a little. "Well, then we'll start with what we know. Between Matt and what I know about Bud's clean up process, we'll catch this guy."

"Then let's get to it. We'll get the ME's report when they're done, but I think I'd be more comfortable moving Matt to the Post Office."

Jacob nodded, his jaw clenched in a small tell of unease. "If a cleaner saw him, he's in more trouble than we thought. We'll need to keep him somewhere safe until this is dealt with."

* * *

 

The day had already been a busy one with a blacklister down, Jacob nearly drowning, and now they were working a homicide case with links back to someone in Bud's organization. By the time that they wrapped the day up the day was long over and no one was comfortable with sending Matt back to his foster parents until the situation was resolved.

That was how he ended up on Liz's tiny little couch that was pressed right against the same wall that her bed was on the other side of. "Jacob should be back any minute and it looks like Hudson had claimed your feet for his new bed," she said with a smile. "Need anything else?"

Matt shifted under the quilt she'd given him, eyes big and he looked as tired as she felt. "Why doesn't Jacob live here with you?"

"Liz was halfway to standing from her crouched position and she paused, turning to look at him. "Hmm?"

"Jacob. You two are together. Why doesn't he live here?"

"We…" Liz swallowed hard. Matt wasn't a normal kid. They had been more straightforward with him about everything that day than they would have been with any other twelve-year-old because he'd seen and experienced more than most of the kids his age. When it came to she and Jacob, though, it was a difficult thing to explain to an adult, much less a child. "Jacob and I are taking it slow. There were a lot of lies before I found out that he worked for Bud. It doesn't… mean that he loved me any less, but it's hard. We want to do it right."

"But he stays here sometimes?"

"And I stay at his place sometimes, but both need a place to go and think."

"You guys spend a lot of time together because of work, huh?"

"We do, but we like spending time with each other. It's just… well sometimes we need time to sort through things on our own. He spent a lot of time being someone else. He needs to make sure that the man that he _really_ is isn't just another part to play because he thinks I want it."

Matt blinked, shifting to sit up a little. "That makes sense. One of the kids in second year, she was on the deep cover track. I didn't know her very well, but I don't think anyone did. I don't think she knew herself very well either. I think you know Jacob better than you think, though."

Liz looked over as she heard the sound of a key being fit into the lock from the outside and she stood to unlock the deadbolt when Jacob realized that he couldn't get in.

"Hey Liz?"

"Yeah?" she asked as the knock followed, a funny little rhythm that she'd only heard Jacob use.

"Do you think I could ever be normal? Like… have a family and stuff?"

"Of course you can," she answered automatically, opening the door. Her ex stood there looking entirely worn by the day and shuffled in, his bag slung over his shoulder and mumbling something about a shower and sleep. He pressed a quick kiss to her temple as he passed, stopped by the couch long enough to ruffle Matt's hair, and then trudged on into her bedroom. Liz waited until she heard the bathroom door shut before risking the laugh that she'd been holding back. "Apparently we all need some sleep. Knock on the wall if you need us, okay? I'm going to leave the door cracked."

"Okay," Matt murmured, burrowing back down on the couch. "Hey Liz?"

She stopped again, turning.

"I hope if I get a real family someday, if I could be normal, I'd get one like you and Jacob."

Liz's smile didn't fade. "Honey, I don't think we're anything like normal, but thank you." Impulsively she leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Sleep well."

* * *

 

Jacob stood in the shower and let the hot water work through some of his more tense muscles a few minutes longer than he would have otherwise. It had been a long day, and it was likely the first of a collection of long days until they found this guy. That was if they ever did. While the task force's closing rate on cases was great, Bud's trainees were some of the best in the world. A cleaner was as much of a ghost as the deep cover operatives. If they couldn't find him soon enough, eventually social services would muddle through the red tape and try to do something with Matt. They would move him out of DC or they would try to change his name, make him become someone he wasn't. The kid didn't deserve that, not after everything he'd been through.

Finally Jacob reached over and switched the water off, stepping out of the shower and toweling himself off. He was still running the towel across his dark hair when he stepped out of the bathroom, steam following him, and found Liz sitting crosslegged on her bed and waiting for him. She was looking down, and as he got close enough that he could see what she was looking at without his contacts in, he saw a photo in her hands. She looked up, tears in her eyes and held up the picture of she and Sam from when she had been a little girl. "He protected me from stuff like this."

Jacob swallowed hard. "Yeah, he really did," he answered softly. Bud would have loved to have gotten ahold of someone as clever as Liz as a young teenager. He would have warped her darkest instincts and made her into a killer. She would have gone far in his organization.

"What are we going to do after all this is over?"

He blinked and tossed the towel back into the bathroom, reaching for his t-shirt in his bag and taking a seat on the bed with her as he slipped it over his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what happens to him? Does he just get tossed back in a system that put him in this situation in the first place?"

Jacob pulled in a deep breath, carefully letting the words rattle around in his brain before he dared let them escape. He hated the foster system. Nothing good had come from his time there, or anyone else that he knew that had been stuck in it, but Matt had assured Liz that the foster parents he'd been put with were nice enough people. She'd spoken with them, and while they didn't always seem to know how to handle the kid, they wanted to learn. It seemed like the best possible option for him at this point, so he wasn't certain what his ex wife was getting at. "What are you thinking?" he asked carefully, finally deciding that letting her be blunt was the safest option.

She turned glassy eyes on him and leaned in, letting him wrap his arms around her. She leaned into his chest. "We always talked about adopting a kid."

Terror swept through him, every instinct telling him this was _not_ a safe topic. She had strung him along, built up his hopes, and when he'd finally dared to believe that he could have that family she had pulled it out from under him. The logical side of him knew that's never what she had intended to do, but sometimes it was tough to separate how he felt and what he knew was true. He didn't think he could do that again. "Babe, I'm not sure that's-"

Liz pulled back, eyes flashing angrily at him. "What? You were all for adopting when we were married."

"Yeah, when we weren't fighting for our relationship every step of the way. Lizzy…" He steadied himself and reached out, his hand hovering close enough to hers that she knew that he wanted her to take it. Slowly, hesitantly, she did, and he felt himself even out a little. "I want to, more than most anything, but you were right when you said that we had to fix things with us first. We're still… _You_ wanted to move slow."

"I know," she answered smalley.

"Can I be honest, babe?"

"Of course you can."

"You're probably not going to like it," he warned, but she squeezed his hand and nodded for him to continue. "Ideas that you latch onto when you're emotional are the ones you change your mind about later. You can't dangle this in front of him. A family, for a kid that doesn't have one, is everything. If they'll admit it or not."

"You're worried I'll go back on it like last time."

Jacob winced and watched as Liz took a moment to purposefully not snap at him. Finally she reached forward, her palm against his cheek and he leaned into it. "I don't want him to end up like me, Liz," he whispered. "He's already..."

"We'd help him."

"If we went through with it. We don't even know, after everything, if they'd _let_ us adopt him. Let's... Let's just look into it quietly before you say anything too loudly, okay?"

"We were both cleared."

"Please?"

She huffed and wrapped her arms around him, toppling him to his back and landing on top of him. "Okay," she relented and kissed him. "I love you."

"Love you too."

He shifted them both under the covers and felt her settle against his chest. It was everything he could do not to jump at the opportunity, but they had to be careful. He'd been on the raw end of too many people changing their minds about him that he knew it began to weigh eventually. For now, they needed to focus on keeping the kid safe, then they could start seeing what else they could do and if they were ready to do it.

* * *

 

"I hear you've taken on a ward."

Liz looked up irritably from her desk where she was going over the details and audio of Matt's statement and Jacob's notes that he had added that morning. Red hadn't made a sound as he entered her office, but he gave her that look he did when he thought he was about to bestow wisdom on her. She hadn't seen him for a couple days, but she had known this conversation was coming sooner or later. "Matt's staying with me until we know he's out of danger."

"That boy will never be out of danger. The moment Bill McCready catches wind that the Keens are falling over themselves to protect one of his former students... well, he'll know just how to get back at Tom, won't he?"

"McCready is locked up. Listen, Red, I am well aware that you don't think Jacob and I should ever have a family, but could you please take a break? We're keeping a kid safe so that he can go home."

"And you can look me in the eye and tell me that at the end of this that that is what will happen? He'll go home and you and Tom have no interest in pursuing an adoption in the future."

Liz kept her expression even, but she was starting to wonder if he had her apartment bugged. "Let me do my job, Red. Please tell me you're not here just to gripe about my non-existent personal life."

"Of course not, Lizzy. I have some helpful information so that you can wrap this case up."

"Really?"

He smiled at her, handing her a file. "Have I ever lied to you?"

Liz returned the smile and took it. "Yes, even if you think it's for my own good," she answered and skimmed the documents. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what lengths Red had gone to for this information. Jacob had been out on the street for days, following down every possible lead he could think of without getting himself shot for the effort. The information Red had just delivered to them might have taken the task force weeks to uncover. She forgot just how far his empire stretched. "We have him," she breathed. "Thank you."

Red caught her arm as she started to move towards the door. "Elizabeth, you have made it clear how you feel about Tom and that nothing I say will change that, but using a child to bring you both closer is-"

Liz pulled away, her temper flaring. "You know me too well to finish that statement."

"I suppose I do," he said stiffly.

"You want to make demands of the FBI for your intel, fine, but my personal life is off limits to mix up in this any more than it already is. You have something to say to me about it, you come to me as a friend, not with leverage to bully me into listening."

He pulled back and watched her for a moment before before his expression softened considerably. "I never meant to indicate as much. I only want to see you happy and safe."

She was almost out the door before she turned, his words ringing true. He didn't always go about it in the right way, but he had proven time and again that her best interest was always his goal. "Red?"

"Yes, Lizzy?"

"You and Jacob are both in my life. You both mean... a lot to me. More than I could say. I wish you would both at least try to find common ground."

"That is incredibly unlikely."

"But not impossible," she murmured. "Thank you."

He nodded and she turned. He would come around.

* * *

 

Jacob was trying not to let it get to him that Reddington had handed them their case on a silver platter. He should focus on the fact that Matt was safe and that they wrapped it up and gotten their cleaner - alive, so that they could try to get at least some of his secrets from him - so that Matt wasn't shipped off to some other city. The fact that Jacob had gotten a glimpse at what their life could be if they did adopt Matt was a hard thing to let go of. Harder than he wanted to admit.

They were back to their separate apartments again, their routines that often left them where the only interaction that they had was at work, and Liz hadn't brought up the topic of adoption with him again.

He was finishing up his last few pages of paperwork for the case when arms were suddenly around his neck, Liz's perfume subtle, and she pressed a kiss to his cheek from her place behind him. "Dinner?"

"Definitely. Your place or mine?"

"I was thinking we could try this little place I heard about. Anyway, it's right next to our stop."

"What stop?"

"It's a surprise," she teased and let him go.

She was halfway out the office door by the time he got the laptop shut down. "What kind of surprise?" he called after her.

He didn't get an answer, though, not even as he piled into the passenger seat of her vehicle and let her drive. He wasn't sure when he started recognizing the area, but eventually he was fairly certain that they were going towards a residential community. He was even more confused as she pulled over and a lady was waiting there.

"Sorry we're late," Liz offered. "He's slow."

"Still not sure what for," Jacob chuckled.

The woman smiled and Liz seemed perfectly ready to follow her up a short flight of stairs and into the townhouse that she was opening the door to. Jacob followed, trying not to jump to any conclusions and finding it difficult. "You getting a new place, Liz?"

"I thought _we_ might," she answered, turning around. "What do you think?"

Her ex husband paused, blinking owlishly. "We?"

"I'll give you two a second," the woman - a realtor, he guessed now - said and moved into another room.

Liz bit her bottom lip. "Well, if we're serious about looking into adopting Matt, I think one of the first things they'll want to know is if we can live together without killing each other."

"Pretty sure we managed that for a while without physical fights erupting."

She popped him on the arm. "I'm serious about this. Look at it. It's not as nice as our old place, but the kitchen's big and there are two bedrooms. I mean, you might have to get rid of that terrible chair that you got….."

"I like that chair."

"I know you do. No one else does. Mostly because it looks like you inherited it from your great-grandfather." Jacob wasn't entirely sure what face he made, but it made her laugh and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Are we serious about trying?"

"Are you?" he asked carefully.

"I am."

He pulled in a steadying breath. This was no time for hedging around the truth. "I need you to promise me that you'll talk to me, okay? No one-sided decisions, no backing once he knows."

Liz nodded. "We'll talk about every step, starting with this one."

Jacob's lips tilted up at the edges and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Let's take a look then."

She grinned, the smile reaching her eyes as she tipped up on her toes and kissed him. They were getting their hopes up for something that he didn't even know if they could accomplish. He wasn't sure how deep his cleared record went or if an adoption agency would ever let him within fifty feet of their door again, but he wanted to try. He and Liz wanted their family, and Matt needed one. Jacob had never been very good at loving people, but the longer he was with Liz, the more he found that he was learning. Each step brought him a little closer. It wasn't without plenty of risks, but diving in all the way always did, and it was worth it.

* * *

Notes: I've always really liked that they use learning to swim to illustrate Jacob's learning how to become more than what he's been told he is. It's a beautiful thing, but at the same time, I find it very entertaining and strange that a deep cover operative doesn't know how to swim, because that's not something you'd fake for a cover. I feel like, as part of the task force, it wouldn't take long for that to come out and then it would spread like wild fire and become an ongoing joke. Samar was kind enough to run with it for me in this story. I haven't had many chances yet to have them in scenes together (mostly because I don't have a great handle on her character yet) but I like Samar, and I'm hoping that I will eventually.

For those that didn't read World on Fire, Matt was a character in that story. Hopefully I gave enough information that you weren't too lost in it.

I have several ideas moving forward, but I'm always taking requests, both for this story and if you guys want to see anything over on Truth in the Lies. I should (hopefully) update on that a bit more once we get back into the season.


End file.
